Wednesday, March 22, 2017

From The Guardian-A gay Anglican clergyman who has been rejected as the next bishop of Llandaff was allegedly blocked from appointment as a bishop in Wales twice before on the grounds of his civil partnership.

Jeffrey John, the dean of St Albans Cathedral, told the Guardian his name was put forward for election as bishop of Bangor in 2008 and mooted as bishop of St Asaph the following year.

On both occasions, he said, the then archbishop of Wales, Barry Morgan, told electors that people in civil partnerships were not eligible to be consecrated. “This was untrue, since an official statement of the Church in Wales in December 2005 had made it clear that civil partnership was open to all clergy and lay people alike,” said John.

Morgan had “no legal or canonical basis [for his declaration] that anyone who was civilly partnered was ineligible,” he added.